Lately I’ve kind of changed my perspective a little about social media and influencers.
Maybe it was because I was a bit ‘righteous’ and thinking because I was so full of integrity and morals that I seemed to in my own mind become very ‘judgy’ about the whole social media thing. Yes only in my own head or in private conversations with friends lol...not slamming negativity all over the place online, spewing my opinions, and publicly criticizing people
I was thinking about how much talk there is currently surrounding ‘likes’ being removed off peoples photos and posts, how people ‘blame’ social influencers about everything they have chosen to do with their lives and the impact it’s had on them in different areas of their life. It got me thinking.
I started to think about my own life and experiences and thought it was strange that although I struggled with many issues over my life I literally wouldn’t or couldn’t place any blame on someone else ‘influencing me’. I questioned why I was moving away from this train of thought that was becoming so popular and coming back to the realization that it wasn’t anyone else that was the problem, but the general lack of critical thinking skills and ‘poor me’ mentality that seems to becoming rampant in society. We are becoming a bit ‘soft’ in society when it comes to personal responsibility.
Truth.
In real life not everyone wins.
In real life not everyone gets the amazing genetic body to sculpt into perfection.
In real life not everyone gets to be the best at what they love to do.
In real life not everyone gets to make the big dollars.
In real life not everyone gets to the top of the company.
But you can’t love Olympic sports or support your favorite football team but then say everyone gets a trophy and there should be no score.
You can’t want to improve your health, fitness or body composition but then say that because someone else looks good they are shouldn’t show it off.
You can’t expect a pay rise throughout your own working career if you don’t believe others deserve what they earn.
You can’t expect to live your own life doing what you love if you don’t support others doing the same.
I personally don’t have a huge ‘following’ or get a tonne of ‘likes’ on social media, so why didn’t I care about the Instagram change and cheer like so many for the removal of likes? In all honesty I don’t care. I completely understand the whole self esteem, comparison, body image, self image, self worth etc argument. I see the research and science. But the question is...
Is it again another bandaid solution for a lack of self realization and effort to grow our own self through the challenge of thoughts of comparison and envy? Perhaps the lesson is a part of the journey, even though sometimes it’s rough.
Of course at points of time in my life I have been envious, jealous, compared myself, felt like crap etc, but I had to do the work on myself. I had to spend time reading, sitting with my own thoughts, searching for more information and knowledge, talking to people, talking to professionals etc.
Because the thing is, in life some people are more popular! NOT better, just simply more popular. It’s just how it goes. Some people get more followers, likes, engagement even if we don’t agree that person should be getting that level of attention. The key is to learning to like who you and live your life in the way that feels good for you REGARDLESS of whether the world approves of you, cheers for you or not. It’s not found in hiding likes, to make people feel better and disguise that they aren’t as popular. Because let’s be honest, the photos, perfect body, beautiful filtered photoshopped, staged pictures, dream lives, will still ignite the same feelings of not enough, regardless of whether it has 10 likes of 10,000.
I spoke to a girlfriend of mine who I asked if she felt same way, and she agreed. If we don’t like someone or something we don’t follow. We don’t look at things that make us feel bad about ourselves. I can’t be ‘sold to’ something I don’t want. And if I buy something and I don’t like it I don’t sit and sulk about it or blame others.
I can’t be forced to follow someone else’s life decisions unless they feel like they are a sensible fit for me. If I try something and it’s the wrong fit then I take the lesson and move on with more knowledge to make better decisions next time. Those are learned skills through certain experiences.
Maybe it’s time we invested more into school level education around personal development, life skills and critical thinking. Building our own self worth and self actualisation. Teaching people to write lists of pros and cons, seeing the positives and negatives, looking from all angles, then making an educated and informed decision. Showing people how it’s ok to be different and just because we don’t agree doesn’t mean we should hate, dismiss or suppress each other.
Maybe it’s time we refocused and put the responsibility back on ourselves? Maybe it’s time we looked at the things causing us pain and address those things head on?